I made one of the most embarrassing mistakes of my life the other day at the F.E.A.R. 3 preview in San Francisco. I’ve always been aware of the shooter-horror franchise, but I’ve never been much of a fan. Of all… Continue Reading →

I made one of the most embarrassing mistakes of my life the other day at the F.E.A.R. 3 preview in San Francisco. I’ve always been aware of the shooter-horror franchise, but I’ve never been much of a fan. Of all of Monolith Productions’ creations, F.E.A.R. was in the middle of my list. In point of fact, I preferred their Condemnedseries or the underrated No One Lives Forever.

Stupidly, I asked the developers there when a third installment for Condemned was coming. Their response: “We don’t do that series.” Face palm. Silly me. I’m an idiot. What I didn’t know was that between F.E.A.R. 2 and F.E.A.R. 3 — lets say in the past two years or so — Monolith Productions handed over duties to Day 1 Studios.

To give them credit, the team looks like they’ve done a phenomenal job. Playing the multiplayer modes, Day 1 Studios captured the feel of the previous games. Part of the reason is that they ported the original F.E.A.R. to consoles and they also know their shooters. They made the Lucas Arts game Fracture.

At the event, I checked out four modes — Contractions, F**king Run!, Soul Survivor and Soul King. Here’s a roundup and impressions of what I played.

Contractions

It’s an odd name for multiplayer mode. Immediately, I think of pregnancy or what happens to sports teams when they die. Whatever the case, this mode is a simple siege scenario, where you and three others have to fend off waves Alma’s minions for as long as possible.

You start off with nothing, and teammates will have to find supply crates on the periphery and return them to base. The containers have weapons or more ammo, and the longer players survive, the more powerful their weapons can potentially be just as long as they run to pick up supplies between waves. Teams can either do that or they can repair and build up their base as they prepare for attacks from enemies who get tougher with each assault.

The short breaks between the attacks forces teams to work together. They have to figure out the best use of their manpower. Should they send out two people to look for ammo and two to rebuild the base? Maybe they’re low on bullets or need stronger weapons and need to send everyone out scavenging for crates.

The wild card in this mode is Alma herself who lurks around the level. If players look at her or shoot her, she hexes you. I ended up going blind, having no idea where to go. It’s definitely an entertaining take on the survival mode.

F**king Run!

That pretty much says it all. This is another co-op mode, where you and three others have to go from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Why the hurry? Well, there’s this death cloud called the Paranormal Wall chasing down your squad . It moves evenly through the streets and winding allies between safe zones. It automatically kills allies and ends your game.

In this mode, speed is of the essence as you and your squad run down alleys shooting anything in sight. There are little branches and knooks with tempting weapons and power-ups, but going after them will slow you down, and may mean the Paranormal Wall will get you.

The pace is frantic and chaotic. There’s a lot of pressure. It’s like trying to running through a Walmart on Black Friday. The setup reminds me of a first-person version of Dead Nation. Moves like the sliding melee attack are helpful. You can also revive teammates if they fall in combat. If you ignore them or leave allies to die, they may get angry and shoot you in the back.

Once you get to the safe zones, there’s usually sigh of relief as you stock up on weapons and head once more into the breach. Grenades are a life-saver in F**king Run!, but unfortunately, they’re scarce. The mode can go on for a while, but there is a definite extraction point. It’s something that you’ll definitely have to play a couple of times.

Soul King

This is one of the more conventional multiplayer modes. Everyone starts off as a creature called a specter. These ghostly creatures have the ability to posses humans. The goal of Soul King is too grab the highest score at the end of the round. How do you score? Well you kill AI and take the souls they’ve accumulated by killing computer-controlled enemies.

It gets interesting with the ability to steal teammates’ souls, essentially hijacking their score. If you kill a rival in a possessed body, you can walk over and get half their soul totals. It’s an interesting multiplayer mix that heavily depends on the type of AI character you posses. If it’s someone with big guns, you’ll have a distinct advantage.

Soul Survivor

Day 1 Studios modeled this mode after a horror movie. There are three F.E.A.R. squad members and one specter. For the troopers, the goal of the game is to stay alive and escape. For the specter, you have to prevent that by killing one of the F.E.A.R. squad members and corrupting them. Turning them to your side, evens the odds. Instead of one specter, they’ll be two, and they both have the powerful abilities to take over any AI minion and attack the team.

There’s a heavy dose of paranoia in Soul Survivor as specters stalk the squad. Specters can see through walls and make out his victims via the thin outlines on their characters. To actually kill them, specters will have to engage in some subterfuge, taking over AI and maybe pretend to fight the minions before turning on the F.E.A.R. squadmate. They’ll have to find a way to isolate them because corruption takes a while and if other squadmates see you doing it, they will kill you.

The pace of a match usually goes from 3 to 1, moves to 2 on 2 and eventually ends up 3 against 1. Once that happens, the sole survivor has to book it to an escape point because if the specter corrupts everyone, the game is over.

The odds are stacked against the one commando though. He’ll have to fend off a swarm of enemy AI and three other specters. Thankfully, he does have one advantage. If the sole survivor loses all his health and is down for the account, he can still fire his side arm and if he manages to kill something, he gets full health and another chance to make a run for it. It’s comeback mechanic that gives the sole survivor a puncher’s chance at, well, surviving.

F.E.A.R. 3 is scheduled for release May 24 for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.